Tutorials

It happens quite often that inexperienced directors want to add music to their movie simply because they like it. For example they try to hire one of their favorite rock bands for their drama just because they think it is cool music that would be cool to have in their movie. However, often this music doesn’t serve the dramatic purpose of the movie. You as a director might be happy if you hear your favorite music in your movie but there might be quite a big chance of your audience reacting quite irritated. Ask yourself whether the music you want to add really fits the movie. If you really want to have your favorite band in your movie, a good spot to feature them would be in the End Credits or a possible montage scene in the movie. We’ll have a look at...

Before you hire a composer, think about what your movie needs. Watch movies in roughly the same genre/style as your own movie, listen to what the music does there and get a basic understanding of the musical stylistics of this genre. Also, know what the task of music in general is. It is NOT to help slow editing or bad acting. It can help there but it is not the task of music in the first place. Also, it is not the main task of music to simply comment. The best job for music is to add another level to the visuals, communicate things that aren’t visible or obvious. There’s a neutral dialogue going on but you want a hint of tension because the dialogue deals about something which later becomes very threatening? That’s a perfect job for the music....

If you have worked with a film composer before and you were happy with the result, the first thing would be to ask him/her again if he/she feels up to it and has time. If – for whatever reason – you need to find a new film composer, there are several ways. Depending on what kind of size your project runs, you can directly contact composers whose music you have heard in other movies which you like. If you’re need someone more affordable, there are several ways. A good way is to ask colleagues whether they can recommend someone whom they trust. Also, using Google to find film composers is quite easy. There are thousands of aspiring composers out there. You might also want to try several music forums which there are plenty. However, be aware that there...

The process of creating music for his/her movie usually is for a director a bit different than working with any other film department and often involves a lot of nervousness. The reason for this is the lacking control over the whole process. Usually, the director has a basic or advanced understanding of how every department in the process of making a movie works. He/she has a specific idea of how the editing of the movie needs to be, how the VFX need to look like etc and can make specific suggestions how to change things he doesn’t like. But when it comes to composing music, most directors can only speak in very basic terms and hardly can point out why they like or dislike certain things. Additionally, it is not possible to see instantaneous results on...

Welcome to the new score sheet section of my homepage. Quite often I get emails by people asking whether there are score sheets available of my music so I thought, that I should set up this little section. These score sheets are only to be used for studying purposes. Any publishing, performance etc. without written permission is prohibited. Below every score sheet you’ll find a link to a recording. I will add more score sheets from time to time so make sure to check back! Follow me on Facebook or Twitter to get new score sheets in advance Liebling, lass uns scheiden – 2M5 – Casablanca Audio File: Casablanca by Robin Hoffmann – Composer Morgen Ihr Luschen! – Der Ausbilder Schmidt Film – 1M2 – KSK Arrives Audio...

Due to the many requests I get, I have been reorganizing my tuition schedule and updated the Lessons-Page to give more detailed information about what will be covered by these lessons and to clear up any questions that may arise in advance. Also, I get many emails by people asking me whether I could have a look at their compositions and give them advice on where to improve etc. so I’m offering now individual composition feedback by Email and Skype which doesn’t involve taking regular lessons. Some people might benefit more from getting specific advice on their music instead of having regular lessons so if you think this works better for you, get in touch. For more information on the forms of tuition I offer, just head over to the LESSONS...

Welcome to my next little tutorial. This time I will talk a little bit about rhythmical aspects to be considered when writing for (real) orchestra, as – not surprisingly – not everything that grooves in your mind or sequencer will come out as you want it when you’re dealing with an orchestra. First of all, why talk about this issue at all? Since filmmusic came up, it has always been a medium which melts together many if not all musical styles. Nowadays there is hardly any action score which doesn’t have drum-loops or percussive patterns underneath, there is no Bond movie without Swing elements, there is hardly any epic trailer music in regular 4/4, and – to sum it up – there is hardly any score which doesn’t use influences...

Welcome to the second part of the tutorial about my little piece “The Last Survivor”. If you want to read the first part of this tutorial, head over to Making of “The Last Survivor” – Part I The score sheet for this track as PDF is available HERE Bar 20 – 27 Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. Composition: The most important role of these few bars is to prepare for the middle, softer part of this piece to give it a logical yet not too expectable entrance. I decided to do a strong dominantic buildup there once more followed by a short “free” quasi effect-driven passage which...

Welcome to my next little tutorial. Due to the many questions I received concering my short orchestral action piece “The Last Survivor”, I decided to share a little insight into this little track. This track has the only purpose to fill up my showreel with a few action styles but had the limitation of not being much longer than 90 seconds. So I decided to go for a somewhat “Suite”-like appraoch, trying to fit in as many styles in there as possible. The result is a pretty “active” piece with lots of small parts which of course is not ideal for such a piece but it was a deliberate decision I made to make the most effective use of the time I had. You can have a listen to the whole piece here: Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required...

Welcome to my second tutorial. This time I will talk a bit about the orchestra itself, especially certain practical issues to keep in mind when you write for an orchestra. So you decided you want to write for an orchestra, maybe even a real orchestra, but at least you want to write for something that sounds like orchestra – a sample library, and you also want it to actually sound like an orchestra. It’s not like you need a lot of knowledge about an orchestra to write for samples, you just do what sounds good, but in order to get a convincing result, you might want to handle those samples as if you were writing for orchestra. If you want to write for a real orchestra, you of course HAVE to stick to certain rules and things in order to make it work at...